
In early 2020, Saimir Sula arrived in Barcelona, where he settled with his sister Majlinda, who lived there. He started by selling souvenirs and then applied for a residence permit in Spain. In May of that year, due to the pandemic situation, he was hospitalized. A short time later, his sister received a call from him: Come quickly, they are killing me. It was May 9, Majlinda's birthday.
When the sister arrived at the hospital, the brother had died, initially testing negative for COVID, but trying to escape the hospital in a tense situation and being held by guards. His body was returned to Albania where examinations showed that his heart was missing. An autopsy showed no signs of organ removal. 6 years later, the family awaits answers.
The investigation in Barcelona was closed without finding anything negative. But the Tirana prosecutor's office has an open case for organ trafficking. The prosecutor's office has not yet received 14 pieces of evidence it requested, including hospital videos, witness and doctor testimonies, and the initial autopsy. The Objective portal in Spain has obtained court documents for both countries. After several years of persistence by family members, in July 2023, Albania received a heart with a death date of April 22, 2020.
At that moment, the organ could not be identified by DNA due to some technical difficulties that, according to the family, had been damaged.
"At the Toxicology Institute they know we want DNA and they returned the heart to the state it was in," says Carlos Sardinero, the family's lawyer.
"We have a heart separated from the body without informing the Albanian experts: it was discovered when Saimir's body arrived in Albania. It took us months to find the heart, but the court in Barcelona did not allow us to take the footage," he says.
Examinations were carried out in Barcelona, Tirana and Brussels. The lawyer underlines that the first report indicates a state of agitation and describes it as a ruptured artery that does not appear in the Belgian analyses. Other sources close to the case say that there are administrative errors and it may have happened that the organ was lost in that pandemic situation. The Del Mar Hospital in Barcelona does not perform transplants, a difficult operation that requires specialized rooms. Its spokespeople console the family, and in response to this report they said that the hospital has cooperated with the police investigation and the judges on the case that has been closed at all levels, a decision that the Hospital has accepted.
Above all, the hospital says that it has not received any request from the Albanian judicial system so far. The Spanish Ministry of Justice officially says that all requests that have come from Albania on this issue have been made available. On the other hand, in Tirana, the attorney general's office did not provide information. "The attorney general has decided not to conduct the interview due to the sensitivity of the case," the institution officially states.
"I served as Minister of Justice for 8 years and we have excellent relations with Spain," says Eduard Halimi, now a family lawyer.
"How difficult is it to do a DNA test, in 6 years? Asks Majlida Sula, Saimir's sister. I ask Mr. Bolanos and Pedro Sanchez not to remain silent and to question the doctors. They know what happened to Saimir's heart and they must testify before the court," she continues, asking the Spanish justice system to reopen the case.
"They are hiding something. Saimir was buried without his heart, and the heart they have in the freezer expired on April 22, while Saimir died on May 9. Only DNA can verify whether it is his heart or not. The facts speak for themselves. It is terrible that the family continues to live in this torture," she says.